Chapter 11- When distance doesn't work
2538 Words
Distance sounded easy in her head.
In theory, all Amara had to do was limit interaction, avoid eye contact, keep conversations short and strictly professional. She wouldn’t linger in meetings. She wouldn’t be the last to leave. She wouldn’t let herself care about his mood, his tone, his reactions.
She would exist around him, not near him.
Simple.
But there was nothing simple about working in a building he practically breathed into existence.
The next morning began like the others Lagos noise, rushing bodies, the smell of coffee and exhaustion, the low-level panic of people trying not to get fired. Yet underneath all that noise, Amara felt something else.
Awareness.
Of herself. Of him. Of the invisible line she drew and the way fate seemed almost amused by it.
She came in earlier than usual that day, her plan carefully mapped out:
Arrive before most people.
Stay buried in her work.
Only respond to what directly required her voice.
Leave on time.
She sat at her desk, took a breath, opened her laptop, and fell into the Phoenix files, letting numbers and trends pull her away from emotions. For a while, it worked. The office slowly filled around her, chairs scraping, greetings floating, but she stayed locked in.
She didn’t look up when the elevator dinged.
She didn’t check the hallway when footsteps approached.
She didn’t let herself scan for him.
She heard him, though.
The air told on him before anyone else did.
Conversations dipped. The quiet tightened. A few people shuffled or straightened, that subtle office choreography that came with his presence.
Her fingers kept typing.
“Morning, sir,” someone greeted.
“Good morning,” Adrian’s voice replied, smooth and calm.
Just sound. Just a voice. Just data.
She refused to give it anything else.
He walked past her row. She didn’t look. She could feel his presence like a breeze brushing the back of her neck, but she stared at her screen like it was the only thing that existed.
She thought she had made it.
Then he stopped.
Not fully. Not dramatically. Just one of those slight pauses he’d been having around her lately, like his internal wiring tripped for half a second. Her grip tightened around the mouse.
Don’t turn. Don’t look. Don’t feed the moment.
He said nothing.
After a heartbeat that felt like a minute, he resumed walking.
Her shoulders relaxed by a fraction. She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
Distance. Passed Level One.
She almost smiled.
Tasha dropped into the seat beside her two minutes later without introduction.
“You blanked him,” she announced.
“I what?”
“You blanked him. You did not look up, you did not flinch, you did not freeze. Madam Self-Control, I bow.”
Amara tried not to show how tightly her heart was still beating. “I was working.”
“Hmm.” Tasha narrowed her eyes. “Your ‘working’ suddenly has extra anointing whenever he passes.”
“I’m not giving him attention.”
“Good.” Tasha nodded approvingly. “Make him earn it.”
Amara shook her head. “There’s nothing to earn.”
Tasha smiled that dangerous little smile of hers. “We will see.”
They would not.
If Amara had her way, they would not see anything.
She had learned the hard way that attention could feel like sunlight while it was slowly burning you alive.
By mid-morning, she was deep into feedback revisions and didn’t realize time had passed until a calendar notification popped up:
Phoenix Check-In 11:30 a.m. (CEO + Leads)
She frowned.
Samuel hadn’t mentioned that.
Almost as if summoned, he appeared at the edge of her desk, a helpless expression on his face.
“Don’t be angry,” he started.
“That’s not a good way to begin.”
“They added a quick check-in today. It wasn’t on the original schedule.”
“Who added it?”
He didn’t answer with words.
His look was enough.
Of course.
Her chest tightened, but she only nodded. “Okay. I’ll be ready.”
She told herself this was not about her.
This was about the project.
This was about results.
She could handle thirty minutes in the same room with him. She’d survived much worse.
They went up together. She walked into the room, sat at her usual place, dropped her gaze to the table, and kept her whole being inside her own space.
Adrian arrived a few minutes later.
He didn’t glance around when he walked in.
Didn’t sweep the room.
He walked straight to his seat, placed his tablet down and said, “Let’s start.”
For the first half of the meeting, he barely looked at her. He spoke to the finance lead, the data head, marketing. He only said her name once, just to confirm a number she’d included.
It should have made it easier.
It didn’t.
Because she could feel it a tension that wasn’t loud, but there, between the words. His voice didn’t hold the same edge when he spoke to her. His tone shifted microscopically, softer at the edges, like he wasn’t just reacting to what she said, but to who she was.
She forced herself not to notice.
She failed.
The check-in finished faster than she expected. People packed up, scraping chairs back. She stood too, eager to leave before anyone else.
“Amara, stay,” he said.
Two words. Quiet, calm, lethal.
Her feet stilled.
The others filed out. She heard someone mutter, “Eeyah,” under their breath, like she’d been sentenced. Tasha would have called this a deliverance session.
When the door closed and they were finally alone, the room felt too big and too small at the same time.
She didn’t sit back down. She hugged her notebook to her chest, forcing herself to look composed.
“I have work to finish downstairs,” she said carefully. “Is there something you need, sir?”
He watched her for a moment, head slightly tilted, expression unreadable.
“You’ve been avoiding eye contact,” he said.
Her heart skipped.
“I’ve been working,” she countered.
“Those are not opposites.”
It irritated her, how calm he sounded. As if he had the right to examine her behavior. As if this wasn’t the second life where she was trying to survive him all over again.
“With respect,” she said slowly, “I’ve been focused on my tasks. That’s what you hired me for.”
“I didn’t hire you,” he corrected quietly. “But I did keep you here.”
She didn’t know what to do with that.
He leaned slightly on the table, both hands resting on the surface, posture relaxed but firm.
“If this role is too much for you, say it,” he added. “Don’t shrink into the background. You’re not built for that.”
The words shook her.
You’re not built for that.
In her first life, he had praised her strength when that strength served him then punished her whenever she questioned him. Now he was telling her not to fade.
She swallowed. “I’m not shrinking.”
“Then look at me when you speak.”
Her eyes snapped back to his.
It felt like stepping into a storm she had promised herself she would never walk into again.
For a suspended moment, neither of them said anything. His gaze was steady, scanning her face like there were answers written above her skin.
“Better,” he said eventually, as if they had just adjusted lighting in a room. “If you have concerns, say them directly. I don’t work well with silence.”
She let out a slow breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.
“Understood, sir.”
He straightened. The moment thinned.
“Your new projections were stronger,” he added. “Don’t second-guess them as much.”
If he thought that was a casual sentence, he was wrong.
Second-guessing had cost her everything in her first life.
Now he was unknowingly rebuking the ghost of who he had once trained her to be.
“I’ll try,” she replied.
“Don’t try. Do it.”
His tone softened on the last word, just a fraction.
It unnerved her.
“Is that all?” she asked.
“For now.”
She gave a small nod and walked out before the room could fold in on her.
Distance, she realized, was not just about body space.
He was getting to her through words now. Through lines that sounded harmless but cut deep because of what she remembered.
Downstairs, Tasha intercepted her like a soldier waiting for intel.
“Are you in trouble?” she whispered.
“No.”
“Is he dead?”
“What? No!”
“Okay, so what happened?”
“He talked about eye contact,” she said, dry.
Tasha stared. “Eye contact?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of Nigerian man sits you down to discuss eye contact? Is he alright?”
“I don’t think that’s our business,” Amara muttered.
“I think your face is his business,” Tasha said. “Because that man is studying it like exam question.”
Amara dropped into her chair, exhausted.
“Can we not make jokes today?”
“Okay, sorry.” Tasha lowered her voice. “What did he really say?”
Amara replayed his words in her head.
You’re not built for shrinking.
If you have concerns, say them directly.
Don’t second-guess.
She picked her pen and scribbled something new in her notebook.
Rule six: I am allowed to speak. Even if it scares him, even if it scares me.
She stared at the sentence for a long time.
Because deep down, she knew this was the line that truly separated this life from the last.
In her first life, she had swallowed her voice until it suffocated her.
In this one, she would not be silent.
Not for him.
Not about him.
Not around him.
The rest of the day moved in fits and starts. She buried herself in work, answered Samuel’s questions, nodded along when colleagues mentioned Phoenix like it was a mythical beast. Every now and then, she felt Adrian’s presence on the floor, the subtle shift in posture around her, the awareness that followed him.
She did as promised.
She didn’t drop her gaze when their eyes met again.
The first time it happened, it was in the hallway while she was heading to the printer. He turned a corner. They almost collided.
“Sorry,” she murmured automatically.
“It’s fine,” he replied.
Their eyes met. His gaze didn’t dart away. It lingered—calm, searching, faintly curious. This time, she didn’t look away either. She held it long enough to show herself she could.
Something flickered in his expression. Not a smile. Not surprise. Just… approval.
She broke the contact first, stepping aside. “Excuse me.”
He nodded once and walked past.
Her heart was beating too fast for such a small moment.
But to her, it was monumental.
She hadn’t folded.
She hadn’t shrunk.
She hadn’t dissolved into the old Amara who thought his attention was oxygen.
Still, as the day dragged to a close, she realized something else:
The more she held her ground, the more present he seemed.
Distance wasn’t working the way she imagined. Keeping him physically far was one thing, but the more she defined herself, the more he seemed to notice her in ways he hadn’t before.
It felt unfair.
Fate, she thought resentfully, was a bully.
At 6 p.m., she packed her things, determined to leave before any late-night corridor encounters could repeat themselves. She logged off, slipped her notebook back into her bag, stood up, and headed for the exit.
The hallway outside was almost empty. She passed a cleaner, someone from IT, a tired-looking junior staff clutching a laptop like their life depended on it.
She relaxed a little.
No CEO. No thick tension. Just quiet.
She pressed the elevator button. It dinged open.
Empty.
Thank God.
She stepped in, exhaled, and leaned against the rail as the doors slid shut.
The elevator moved down two floors smoothly.
Then stopped.
The doors opened again.
Adrian stepped in.
Of course.
He seemed a little surprised to see her, but it was the kind of surprise he hid quickly. He pressed the ground floor button, even though it was already lit.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke.
Then he said, without looking at her, “You left earlier today.”
She almost laughed at that.
Earlier. It was 6 p.m.
“I wanted to finish on time,” she replied.
“That’s unusual here.”
“I’m aware.”
Silence again. The elevator hummed quietly, carrying them down.
“Did something happen?” he asked.
She glanced at him, frowning slightly. “No.”
“You’ve been… more contained today,” he observed. “Less reactive.”
It unsettled her, how closely he was watching shifts in her behavior.
“I’m just focused,” she answered. “That’s all.”
He didn’t argue. “Focus suits you.”
It shouldn’t have made her feel anything.
It did.
She wished it didn’t.
“Thank you,” she said, carefully neutral.
The elevator slowed.
“I meant what I said yesterday,” he added suddenly.
She turned to him fully now, heart beating faster. “About what?”
“Not disappearing,” he replied. Then, lower, “Not this time.”
Her skin went cold.
So he had heard it.
He didn’t just react subconsciously, he remembered.
Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. “It was just a phrase,” she lied.
He studied her like he didn’t believe that.
“Maybe,” he said eventually. “Or maybe it wasn’t.”
The doors opened.
They stepped out.
He didn’t stop her this time. Didn’t call her name. Didn’t throw any more words into the air between them.
But as she walked away from him, she could feel it
Distance, as she defined it, was not enough.
He was paying attention.
To her work.
To her reactions.
To her phrases that slipped out by accident from a life he didn’t even know he had ruined.
She left the building with her heart heavier than when she entered.
At the bus stop, as the evening noise wrapped around her, she opened her notebook and wrote a seventh rule.
Rule seven: I will not run. But I will not surrender my heart to a man who doesn’t even know the damage he’s already done in another life.
She snapped the notebook shut.
If fate wanted to repeat the story, it would have to fight her for every page.
Because this time, distance wasn’t going to be enough.
This time, she would need something stronger
Boundaries carved in bone.
And the courage to hold them, even when Adrian Alpha looked at her like she was the one thing in his life he couldn’t quite understand.
And for reasons that terrified her…
he was starting to look at her exactly like that.
- Writer
